“That’s right, and now we will go back to the bench, and then you shall tell me all about yourself; just to pass away the time. Now,” said he, as he took his seat, “in the first place, who is your father, if you have any; and if you haven’t any, what was he?”
“Father and mother are both alive, but they are a long way off. Father was a soldier, and he has a pension now.”
“A soldier! Do you know in what regiment?”
“Yes, it was the 53rd, I think.”
“By the powers, my own regiment! And what is your name, then, and his?”
“Rushbrook,” replied Joey.
“My pivot man, by all that’s holy. Now haven’t you nicely dropped on your feet?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied our hero.
“But I do; your father was the best fellow I had in my company—the best forager, and always took care of his officer, as a good man should do. If there was a turkey, or a goose, or a duck, or a fowl, or a pig within ten miles of us, he would have it: he was the boy for poaching. And now tell me (and mind you tell the truth when you meet with a friend) what made you leave your father and mother?”
“I was afraid of being taken up—” and here Joey stopped, for he hardly knew what to say; trust his new acquaintance with his father’s secret he dare not, neither did he like to tell what was directly false; as the reader will perceive by his reply, he partly told the truth.